Realizing Interdependence

Hi, and welcome to your Daily Mindfulness. Today, I'm going to talk about interdependence. So the practice of realizing interdependence is about really knowing, not just in our mind, but in our whole being, that we're not separate from that which is around us. And it's seeing into the deep truth that we do live dependently, relying on thousands of other things just to exist and go about daily life. For example, the plants around you exhale the oxygen you need to inhale and stay alive.

The sun shines the light that allows you to be able to see anything at all and allows the food you eat to grow, even as its gravitational pull holds the earth in its orbit at just the right amount of warmth to allow life to flourish here on, earth. It took massive explosions of stars billions of years ago to form every atom of your body. And you exist here in a finely tuned system of nature from the tides to the seasons, to the rainfall patterns and the bees that pollinate the flowers, the worms that nourish the soil for your food. And we rely on a network of humans too, people who build the roads we travel on, the medicines that heal us, the teachers who teach us the community all around us - shopkeepers, bakers, doctors, lawyers, scientists, artists, and musicians - who all come together to form a local support system. Then we have our friends and our family who are our shoulders to cry on, our confidants and our playmates.

It can feel a little unnerving perhaps to realize that we're so dependent on thousands of other things to survive. Especially because our culture has this huge emphasis on independence and an almost shameful view of dependence on others. But accepting the truth of interdependence actually brings you into harmony with the way life is. All of life exists in a huge interconnected web. Every single thing is dependent on all other things, from grasshoppers to galaxies, from the universe to you and me.

We belong to each other. This is how life has always existed. So realizing dependence far from being a source of shame can bring you into an almost reverence state of gratitude and belonging. We'll explore this some more in today's meditation. So I invite you to begin to settle in for that.

And as always, thank you for your practice and your presence here with us.